The Beach

He walked briskly over to the bed, sat down, and pulled a knife from under the pillow.

'Don't, Mister Duck! Don't do it!'

'My mind's made up.'

'There's time to change your mind!'

'I won't turn back now.'

'Mister Duck!' I cried out feebly.

Too late. He'd already started to cut.

I didn't watch him die because I thought it would be disrespectful, but I checked on him five minutes later to see how he was getting on. He was still alive, jerking around on the sheets and spraying the walls. I waited another fifteen minutes before checking again, wanting to be sure. This time he was still, lying in the position I'd first found him. His torso was twisted so that his legs were off the edge of the bed – a detail I hadn't noticed previously. Maybe he'd tried to stand up just before he'd died.

'I'll sort your ashes out, Mister Duck,' I whispered through the netting. 'You don't have to worry about that.'

Messed Up

I woke up at the first glimmer of dawn. The sun was still under the horizon and the beach was lit with a strange blue light, both dark and bright at the same time. It was very beautiful and calm. Even the waves seemed to be breaking more quietly than usual.

I didn't wake Jed because I like being awake when other people are asleep. It makes me feel like pottering around, fixing breakfast if there's anything to be fixed, and in this case, wandering aimlessly up the shore. While I walked I looked out for pretty shells. The necklace that Bugs had made me was OK, but many of the shells were a bit drab. I got the feeling that he hadn't been too bothered to make them nice. Even Françoise's necklace, which was the best out of the three, wasn't as good as most of the others in the camp. It didn't take long before I'd worked up a collection and was having to make hard choices about which shells to discard. The prettiest I found was flecked with blue, red and green – the back of a tiny crab. I decided that this would make the centrepiece of my new necklace, and looked forward to restringing it when I got home.

I found the couple lying fast asleep on the grass verge, about two hundred metres further on from where we'd hidden the boat. It was the same couple that Jed and I had passed yesterday. My first instinct was to turn back, but curiosity stopped me. They'd chosen an oddly remote beach hut to stay in, miles from Hat Rin, and I was intrigued to see what kind of people they were. I pocketed my shells and padded across the sand towards them.

Now I had a chance to see the couple from close up, they made an ugly sight. The girl had nasty sores around her mouth and was covered in fat black mosquitoes. At least thirty or forty were clustered on her legs and arms, and when I waved my hand over them they didn't budge an inch. There were no mosquitoes on the guy. 'No surprise,' I thought, because he wouldn't have made much of a meal. Judging by his height I reckoned he should have been eleven stone, but he couldn't have weighed more than eight. His body was like an anatomical diagram. Every bone was clearly visible, as was every pitiful muscle. Beside him was a pill bottle, marked with the address of some dubious pharmacy in Surat Thani. I checked inside but it was empty.

I'd been studying the guy for a while before I noticed that his eyes were slightly open. Just little slits, easy to miss at first glance. I waited to see him blink. He didn't, or didn't seem to, so I waited to see him breathe. He didn't do that either. Then I bent down and touched his chest. He was warm enough, but the air was pretty warm too so that didn't mean anything. I pressed my hand down harder. My fingers sank deeply between his ribs and the skin moved slackly against the bone. No pulse. I started counting, carefully marking the seconds with elephants, and by the time I reached sixty I knew he was dead.

I frowned and looked around me. Apart from the silhouette of Jed and the rice sacks, the beach was completely deserted. Then I looked back at the girl. I knew she was alive because of the mosquitoes, and anyway, her chest was rising and falling.

This unsettled me. I wasn't bothered about the guy because he'd come to Thailand and messed up, so that was his look-out. But the girl was another matter entirely. As soon as her opiate slumber wore off she'd wake up to an empty beach and a corpse. I thought that would be a terrible thing to happen and, seeing as I'd been the one to find her, I felt I had some responsibility for her well-being. I lit up a cigarette and wondered how I might help.

Waking the girl up was out of the question. Even if I managed to bring her round, she'd only freak out. Then the authorities on Ko Pha-Ngan would get involved and it would be a disaster. Another option was to wake Jed up and ask his advice, but I decided against it. I knew what he'd say. He'd say it was none of our business and we should leave the couple as we found them, and I already knew I didn't want to do that.

Eventually I hit on a good idea. I would drag the guy's body away to the bushes and hide it. Then, when she woke up, she'd just think he'd gone for a walk. After a day or so she'd realize he was missing and might worry about what had happened to him, but at least she wouldn't know he was dead. By that time he would probably have been eaten by ants and beetles, and no one but me would be any the wiser.

I busied myself with the task at hand, keeping half an eye on my watch. Jed would be awake soon and then it would be time to leave.

'Jed!' I said softly.

He stirred and waved a hand over his face, like he was brushing away a fly.

'Jed! Wake up!'

'What?' he mumbled.

'We should go. It's getting light.'

He sat up and looked up at the sky. The sun was fully above the horizon. 'Shit, yeah, we should. Overslept. Sorry. Let's get cracking.'

When we were halfway between Ko Pha-Ngan and our island I told him what had happened with the corpse and how I'd dealt with it.

'Jesus fucking Christ, Richard!' he'd shouted – only because the engine was so loud. 'What the flying fuck did you do that for?'

'Well, what should I have done?'

'You should have left him there, you bloody idiot! What did it have to do with us? Nothing!'

'I knew you'd say that,' I said happily. 'I knew it.'

PRISONERS OF THE SUN

Bible-Bashing

No one was even slightly interested. A few asked 'How was it?' out of politeness, but as soon as I began to answer their eyes glazed over or their attention became diverted by something over my shoulder.

At first I found this attitude pretty frustrating – I wanted to talk at length about how fucked up Ko Pha-Ngan was – and the frustration was compounded by the unenthusiastic response I got when I handed out my little presents. Françoise took one taste of the toothpaste and spat it out, saying, 'Ugh, I did not remember the way it burns,' and Keaty said I shouldn't have bought Thai-brand batteries because they run out so fast. The only person who seemed at all grateful was Unhygienix. He went straight off for a shower after I gave him the bars, and later he gave me a glowing report on the thick lather they produced.

But my frustration only lasted while Ko Pha-Ngan was fresh in my mind, which wasn't long. Just as when I'd first arrived at the beach, my memory began to shut itself down. Steadily, quickly, so that within a week nothing much existed beyond the lagoon and its circle of protective cliffs. Nothing except the World, that is, and that had returned to its previous condition, a name to something faceless and indistinct.

My worries about Zeph and Sammy were the last things to go. As late as the fifth night I was kept awake, fretting about what plans they and the mysterious Germans might be making. But it became hard to maintain that level of worry as the days passed, and still no one had turned up. Having said that, the day after the fretful fifth night I did ask Jed whether he'd also been thinking about the Zeph and Sammy problem, and he made a see-saw motion with his hands. 'I've been thinking about it a little,' he said. 'But I think we're OK.'

'You do?' I replied, already sensing the weight of the problem lifting.

'Yeah. Those two were on the pilgrim's route. They had guidebook written all over them. If not, like I already said, we'll deal with it when it happens.' He pulled a knot of hair out of his beard. 'You know, Richard, one of these days I'm going to find one of those Lonely Planet writers and I'm going to ask him, what's so fucking lonely about the Khao San Road?'

I smiled. 'Just before you punch his lights out, right?'

The smile was not returned.

Jaws One

A few weeks after the Rice Run I woke up to the noise of rain on the longhouse roof. It had rained only three or four times since I'd arrived at the beach, and those had been no more than showers. This was a tropical storm, even heavier than the one on Ko Samui.

A few of us huddled around the longhouse entrance, looking out across the clearing. The canopy ceiling was channelling the water into thick streams that shone like lasers and cut muddy holes into the earth. Keaty was standing under one of them, his top half obscured by the silver umbrella that exploded off his head. I only recognized him from his black legs and the faint sound of his laughter. Bugs was also standing outside. He had his head tilted so that one cheek was angled upwards, his arms were held slightly away from his body, and his palms were ready to catch the rain.

'Thinks he's Christ,' muttered a voice behind me. I turned around and saw Jesse, a compact New Zealander who worked on the garden detail with Keaty. Jesse was one of the people I'd never had much cause to speak to, but I'd always suspected that he'd been the one to pick up my first John-Boy cue.

I looked back at Bugs and smiled; there was something Christ-like about his pose. Either the pose or the beatific expression on his face, anyway.

'Know what I mean?' Jesse said.

I smiled.

'Maybe the carpentry's gone to his head,' said Cassie, who was also standing near, and we all chuckled. I would have added something but Jesse nudged me. Sal had emerged from the far end of the longhouse and was walking towards us. Gregorio was beside her, looking a little hassled.

'What's the delay?' asked Sal, as she approached.

Nobody answered her so I said, 'Delay about what?'

'Fishing, gardening, work.'

Jesse shrugged. 'Not much gardening to be done in the rain, Sal.'

'The plants can be protected, Jesse. You can rig up a shelter.'

'Plants need rain.'

'They don't need rain like this.'

Jesse shrugged again.

'And you, Richard? What will we eat with your rice if you don't go fishing?'

'I was waiting for Greg.'

'Greg's ready now.'

'Yes,' said Gregorio, and Étienne and Françoise also appeared. 'We are ready now.'

We jogged down to the beach, sliding around in the mud. I don't know why we were jogging because we were soaked within seconds, and in any case, we were going to spend the next three hours in the sea. I suppose there was a general feeling that we wanted to get the fishing done as quickly as possible.

While we jogged, I thought over the brief exchange under the longhouse entrance. I'd never mentioned the way Bugs irritated me, not even to Keaty. It hadn't seemed like a wise idea, considering his standing in the camp, and my criticisms seemed so petty. But from the way Jesse and Cassie had been talking, I began to wonder if others felt the same way. Although they hadn't said anything nasty they'd certainly been taking the piss, and until that moment it hadn't occurred to me that people took the piss out of Bugs.

The thing that most struck me was the way they'd hushed up when Sal came over. If it hadn't been for that, the joking would have seemed far less telling. As it was, I felt like I'd witnessed some kind of division – however slight – and possibly been included in it. I decided I ought to find out more about Jesse and Cassie, if only to get to know them better. I'd have asked Gregorio, but I knew I'd get a uselessly diplomatic answer. Keaty or Jed were the ones to talk to.

The sea was covered in a thick, low mist of vaporized raindrops. Under the shelter of a palm tree, we leant against our spears and shook our heads.

'This is too stupid,' said Françoise. 'We cannot kill fish if we do not see them.'

Г‰tienne grunted his agreement. 'We cannot even see the water.'

'Yes, we use the mask,' Gregorio replied, holding it up, and I groaned.

'Is that what you normally do when it rains?'

'Of course.'

'But that means only one person can fish at a time. It's going to take for ever.'

'It will take a long time, Richard.'

'How about Moshe and the Yugoslavian girls, and the Swedes? They don't have masks.'

'They will try to catch fish but they will kill only a few… When it rains like this, we can get very hungry on the beach.'

'And if it rains for five days?' said Françoise. 'It can rain for five days, no?'

Gregorio shrugged and glanced at the sky. From the look of it, the rain wouldn't ease up for at least another twenty-four hours. 'We can get very hungry on the beach,' he repeated, and dug his spear further into the wet earth.

We lapsed into silence, each of us apparently waiting for someone else to take the first go on the mask. I wanted to stand under the palm tree all day, ignoring the enormity of the work ahead, because as soon as the work was begun we'd all be committed to finishing it.

Five minutes passed, then another five, and then Г‰tienne slung his spear over his shoulder.

'No,' I said, sighing. 'I'll go first.'

'Are you sure, Richard? We can throw a coin.'

'You've got a coin?'

Étienne smiled. 'We can throw… the mask. Face down, I will go first.'

'I don't mind going first.'

'OK,' he said, patting my arm. 'So I shall go next.'

'OK.'

Gregorio passed me the mask and I set off for the water. 'Swim deeply and look under the boulders,' he called after me. 'The fish will be hiding.'

It was a buzz, swimming through the thick vapour. I couldn't wear the mask because the spray was too dense to let me breathe through my mouth, which meant I was constantly blinking to clear the water from my eyes. With nothing to see but a blurred foot of sea on either side of me, and each breath requiring a manageable amount of labour, I felt agreeably cocooned by a mildly dangerous world.

I stopped at the first boulder I came to. It was one of the smaller ones, sixty or so metres from the shore. We rarely used it as there was only room for one person to sit on it at a time, but seeing as I was alone it didn't make much difference. When I stood up my top half cleared the layer of mist. Г‰tienne was standing on the sand, holding his hands like a peaked cap to ward off the rain. I waved my spear in the air and he spotted me, then turned to walk back to the tree-line.

The first thing I needed to do was to find a heavy stone so I could rest on the bottom with a decent lungful of air. I put on the mask and slipped into the water, kicking out for the sea floor. The light was dark grey, deadened by the black sky and the mist, but the visibility was good. There weren't, however, any fish to be seen, not even the clouds of tiny fry which usually wheeled around the corals.

I took my time hunting for the stone, making myself move slowly. If there were any fish around I didn't want to scare them off. Eventually I spotted one that looked the right size and weight. I'd run out of air by that time so I stuck my spear beside the stone to make it easy to find again, and rose up to the surface.

On the way back down a few milkfish appeared, coming to inspect the new arrival to their storm shelter. I settled at the bottom with the stone on my lap and waited for their curiosity to bring them

within range.

I saw the shark on my third dive. I'd just killed my first milkfish so it must have been attracted by the smell of blood. It wasn't much of a shark, about a foot longer than my leg and much the same width, but it gave me a hell of a shock. I didn't know what to do. Despite its small size it made me nervous, but I didn't want to swim back with only one fish. I'd have to explain why I gave up so soon, and it would also be embarrassing if the shark was seen later. It was probably only a baby.

I decided I'd have to resurface and hang around on the boulder, hoping it would go away. I did this and spent the next ten minutes shivering in the mist and rain, crouched down because I didn't want the others to see that I wasn't fishing. Every so often I peered underwater to check if it was still there. It always was, circling slowly near the spot where I'd been sitting, watching me – I reckoned – with its inky eyes.

A brilliant idea coincided with a blistering peal of thunder. I put my milkfish, which was still in the twitching stage of death, on the tip of my spear. Then I rolled on to my front so I could dip my head and arms into the water, and held the spear ahead of me. The shark responded at once, breaking out of its leisured pace with a crisp snap of its tail. It headed towards me at an angle that would have carried it past the boulder, but six feet away it turned abruptly and lunged at the milkfish.

Out of sheer instinct I pulled the spear back. The lunge had been so quick and threatening that my reflexes had got the better of my common sense. The shark whipped past me and vanished behind a bank of corals. It didn't reappear within ten seconds, so I pulled myself out of the water to get some air.

I swore at myself, took a few deep breaths, then dipped back in.

The next time the shark appeared it was more cautious, swimming near but showing little interest. The milkfish was dead by now and floating limply, so I tried jerking the spear to approximate life. The shark's enthusiasm revived. Again it began its angled approach, but this time I took care to tense my arms. As it lunged, I pushed. The point of the spear caught momentarily on its teeth or gums, then sunk into its mouth.

With a mighty wrench I pulled myself upwards, stupidly thinking I'd hoist the shark on to the boulder behind me, but the spear simply snapped. I looked blankly at my broken spear for a couple of seconds, then shoved myself completely off the rock.

Underwater, the greyness was already hanging with curiously static strings of blood. Close by, the shark wildly thrashed and twisted, champing at the splintered bamboo between its teeth, sometimes diving directly downwards and ramming its snout on the seabed.

Watching it, I realized I'd never killed anything as large before, or anything that fought so violently for its survival. As if to complement my thought, the shark increased the intensity of its thrashing, and became obscured behind a cloud of disturbed sand and shredded seaweed. Occasionally, like in a comic-book fight, its tail or head would appear out of the cloud before darting back inside again. The sight made me grin, and salt-water eased through the sides of my mouth. I resurfaced. I needed to spit and I needed some air. Then, with no intention of going near it while it was in that frantic state, I floated face down and waited for it to die.

Hi, Man

I don't keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once, and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slipped away, as though my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason, I don't travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost. Apart from that, photographs never seem to be very evocative. When I look through the albums of old travelling companions I'm always surprised by how little I'm reminded of the trip.

If only there were a camera that captured smell. Smells are far more vivid than images. I've often been walking in London on a hot day, caught the smell of hot refuse or melting tarmac and suddenly been transported to a Delhi side-street. Likewise, if I'm walking past a fishmonger's I think instantly of Unhygienix, and if I smell sweat and cut grass (the lawn kind) I think of Keaty. I doubt either of them would appreciate being remembered in such a way, especially Unhygienix, but that's how it is.

All that said, I wish there'd been someone with a camera when I sauntered out of the mist with a dead shark over my shoulder. I must have looked so cool.

That afternoon, I was the toast of the camp. The shark was grilled and cut into strips so everyone would get a proper taste, and Keaty made me stand up and repeat my story to the whole camp. When I got to the part about the shark's first lunge, everyone gasped as if they were watching fireworks, and when I told how I tensed my arms for the deathblow, everyone cheered.

For the remainder of that day and night I had people constantly coming up to me to give their congratulations. Jed was the nicest. He walked over to where I was smoking with Étienne, Françoise and Keaty, and said, 'Well done, Richard. That was really something. I think we ought to rename you Tarzan.' That made Keaty giggle like crazy, mainly because he was stoned, so Jed sat down with us and we all got wasted together.

It was doubly nice because Keaty and Jed got on so well. After the Rice Run I'd been trying to persuade Keaty that Jed was OK, and now I felt like I'd had some success. It also turned out they had something in common, one of those weird coincidences that could easily never have been realized. Six years ago they'd both stayed at the same guesthouse in Yogyakarta, on the very same night. They were able to work this out because on that night the guesthouse had mysteriously burned down—or not so mysteriously as it turned out. Keaty had been tripping, and the mosquitoes in his room were driving him mad. Knowing that mosquitoes were driven away by smoke he lit a small fire, and the next thing he knew the room was completely ablaze. Jed explained that he'd had to escape the guesthouse by jumping from a third-storey window and that all his money had been burned, and Keaty apologized, and everyone rolled around laughing.

If there was a sour note to the evening, it was Bugs, but ironically even that turned out OK. He came over while we were in the middle of another laughing fit, this one about the moment Г‰tienne had realized we were standing in a dope field.

'Hi, man,' he said, flicking his head back to clear the hair from his eyes.

At first I didn't answer because I was out of breath, and then I said, 'What?' It wasn't a good choice of words. I'd honestly meant it in a friendly way, but it came out sounding like a confrontation.

If Bugs was taken aback he didn't show it – then again, he wouldn't have done.

'I just came over to say congratulations. About the shark.'

'Oh, yeah. Thanks. I… uh… I'm glad I caught it…' Again, my stoned head seemed to be putting the most inappropriate words into my mouth.' …I've never caught a shark before.'

'We 're all glad you caught it… Actually, I've caught a shark before.'

'Oh?' I said, now trying extremely hard to concentrate on what I was saying. 'Really? That's amazing… You should certainly… uh… certainly tell us about it.'

'Certainly,' Keaty echoed, then coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed giggle.

Bugs paused. 'It was in Australia.'

'Australia… Gosh.'

'Must be about five years ago now.'

'Five years? Was it as long ago as that? …uh…'

'A tiger shark, twelve-footer.'

'How very… huge.'

Suddenly Keaty dissolved into hysterics, and he set off Jed, who set off the others.

Bugs smiled thinly. 'Maybe I'll save it for another time.'

'It sounds like a great story,' I managed to say before he turned to go. Then Keaty gasped, 'Certainly,' and I collapsed as well.

'My God, Richard,' said Françoise a couple of minutes later. Her face was shining from tears. 'What were you saying to Bugs? Everything you said…'

'Was wrong. I know. I couldn't help it.'

Г‰tienne nudged me. 'You do not like Bugs, huh?'

'It isn't that. I'm just wasted. I'm not thinking straight.'

'That's bullshit, Rich,' said Keaty, grinning slyly.

Jed nodded. 'Admit it. I've seen the way you look at him.'

There was a silence while everyone looked at me, waiting for an answer. Eventually I shrugged. 'All right then, you've got me. I think he's a prat.'

This time we laughed so long and so helplessly that people started peering at us to find out what was going on.

Cab!

'Night John-Boy,' said a voice. Bugs' voice, loud and firm.

' 'Night Rich,' came the immediate reply – hard to recognize, but I guessed Moshe.

I grinned at the darkness. I knew Bugs had been pissed off by the way we'd laughed at him, and knew this was his way of regaining – what? Authority or respect. And now his cue had been chucked directly back to me, the person who caused the laughter. That must have grated.

My grin widened and I let the silence hang for a few seconds, then I said, 'Night Jesse.'

Jesse passed it to Ella, who passed it to an Aussie carpenter, who passed it to one of the Yugoslavian girls, and I tuned the rest of the game out.

There was a question that needed answering, I realized as I lay awake that night and listened to the laser beams hammering on the longhouse roof. Why did Bugs get on my nerves so much? Because he really did. I hadn't even realized how much until Jed told me to admit it.

I mean, it wasn't like he'd done anything bad to me or said anything rude. In fact I barely ever talked to him. Not talk talked. Our exchanges were all about work, arranging the carpentry detail to knock up some new spears, passing on a message from Gregorio or Unhygienix, stuff like that.

To answer the question I made a mental list of all the things he'd done to piss me off. There'd been his stupid stoicism when he hurt his leg, the thing with the soup, his almost wacky name. He also had an irritating competitive streak. If you'd watched the sun rise over Borobudur, he'd tell you that you should have seen the sun set, or if you knew of a good place to eat in Singapore, he'd know of one better. Or if you'd caught a shark with your bare hands…

I decided to deny him the chance to talk me through his tiger-shark experience.

But anyway, these weren't big enough reasons. There had to be something else.

'Just a hunch then,' I muttered, and rolled over to go to sleep, but it didn't satisfy me as an answer.

It would have been useful if Mister Duck had dropped by that night, because I could have asked him to fill me in more about Bugs' character. Unfortunately he didn't. He was a bit like taxis in that respect. Taxis and night buses.

Seeing Red

The rain continued to pour all through that week and half the next, but in the early hours of a Thursday morning it stopped. Everyone was relieved, and no one more than the fishing details. Sitting on the seabed for one-minute bursts, occasionally spotting a fish and usually missing it, had got old pretty fast. When we woke to see that the blue skies were back, we couldn't get down to the water quick enough. Something of a killing frenzy ensued—we caught our entire quota within an hour and a half – and after that, the only thing left to kill was time.

Gregorio and Étienne swam off to the coral gardens, and Françoise and I swam back to the beach to sunbathe. We lay in silence at first, me watching how much sweat could collect in my belly button before it spilled out, and Françoise on her front, sifting sand through her fingers. A few metres away, in the shade of the trees, our catch splashed in their buckets. Considering its source, the sound was strangely soothing. It complemented the moment – the sea breeze and the sunshine – and I missed it when the fish were all dead.

Not long after the last splash Françoise sat up, twisting gracefully out of her recline so that she was kneeling with her hands on her hips and her slim brown legs tucked neatly to the side. Then she rolled the top of her swimming costume down to her waist and stretched her arms up at the blue sky. She held that pose for several seconds before relaxing again and dropping her hands into her lap.

Without thinking I sighed, and Françoise glanced at me. 'What is the matter?' she said.

I blinked. 'Nothing.'

'You sighed.'

'Oh… I was just thinking…' My mind ran through a quick list of options: the return of the sunshine, the stillness of the lagoon, the whiteness of the sand.' …how easy it would be to stay here.'

'Ah yes.' Françoise nodded. 'To stay on the beach for ever. Very easy…'

I paused for a moment, then sat up too, spilling my sweat reservoir into the waistband of my shorts. 'Do you ever think about home, Françoise?'

'Paris?'

'Paris, family, friends… All that.'

'Uh… No, Richard. I do not.'

'Yeah. I don't either. But don't you think that's a bit strange? I mean, I've got a whole life back in England that I can hardly remember, let alone miss. I haven't telephoned or written to my parents since arriving in Thailand, and I sort of know they'll be worried about me, but I don't feel the urge to do anything about it. When I was in Ko Pha-Ngan, it didn't even cross my mind… Don't you think that's strange?'

'Parents…' Françoise frowned as if she were struggling to remember the word. 'Yes, it is strange, but…'